


Weekend in The Keys

by Siberianskys



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-07 22:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17374331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siberianskys/pseuds/Siberianskys
Summary: Prompts: inside, sand, hallucination, nest, song, bird, blanket, Saturday, light, mystery





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: inside, sand, hallucination, nest, song, bird, blanket, Saturday, light, mystery, office, cave

Clint spread out the blanket for the fourth time and was finally happy with the results. Turning on the CD player, he cringed at the song coming from the speakers; if he knew one thing about his relationship with Phil it was that they were never going to agree on the definition of music. It didn't matter anyway; the only thing that did was that Phil walking toward him leaning heavily on a hand-carved cane and Natasha's arm was not an hallucination. Loki had failed and the damage inside Phil's chest would eventually heal even if he would probably never again be a field agent with S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony had already offered him a position with Stark Industries that came with a corner office. He initially declined, but Tony kept working him and Clint thought he was on the verge of caving. 

Clint helped Phil settle on the blanket before taking the picnic basket from Natasha; the contents it contained were a mystery, but he trusted Nat to do right by them. He smiled at her as she trailed back toward the house, her small feet re-tracing her steps in the white sand. The seagulls swooping overhead followed her. 

The Saturday morning grew brighter as the sun rose higher in the sky. Even the brightening light couldn't impede Phil from dozing off. Clint spooned his lover and briefly thought of how he now understood why people nested as he joined Phil in sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: early, family, disturbing, thief, animals, truth, spring, purple, quick, house

Clint woke unexpectedly and quickly. He realized why when he saw a large family down the beach, the three older kids running in the surf and tossing a beach ball back and forth while their parents watched from a spread of towels and kept their younger siblings barely contained; the laughter had carried on the wind.

Clint was disturbed that the noise hadn't woken Phil, who still slept on. He wondered if he hadn't been given the whole truth about Phil's recovery. He wasn't going to ruin their short time at the beach house by nagging him about his health. 

Sitting up carefully so not to jar his lover, Clint opened the picnic basket that Nat had prepared and rummaged for something to snack on from the selections that had been intended for an early lunch or whatever you called the enforced meal that was required for Phil's 10:30 AM meds. Clint opened a lid of one of the plastic containers in the basket and raised his eyebrow at what Nat told him was Spring Mix. He had no idea what the purple chunks were that were resting on top. They must not be too bad, because some long-beaked bird, that his childhood in Iowa hadn't prepared him to identify, had swooped down and grabbed a chunk.

Clint smirked at Phil's huskily whispered "thief".


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: introduction, making history, obsession, lost, silence, opportunity, dance, life, pain, good morning, archive

It was a good morning, Phil thought as he woke-up for the second time and looked out at the marine blue ocean and listened to Clint rustle around in the picnic basket. For once, the pain in his chest wasn't the first thing he noticed when he woke; he liked to believe that it was the soft sand under his blanket. He was surprised that the usually chatty Clint wasn't just quiet, but silent. Phil couldn't help but be reminded by Clint's demeanor from their first awkward introduction. That meeting had made history inside S.H.I.E.L.D.; if it wasn't for his actions that day there would never have been an Agent Barton or an Avenger named Hawkeye. And without Agent Barton, S.H.I.E.L.D. would never have had the opportunity to recruit Natasha Romanov and therefore The Black Widow. If he hadn't made the decision to wound and not kill that day his life would have turned out very differently. He never would have fallen for the young, lost archer. And that archer never would have danced around him until he fell just as hard. Though Clint would probably deny it, that young, lost archer had not only changed the work-obsessed agent into a caring partner, but he changed the amoral Russian assassin into someone who could love them both like a sister. It was the sort of thing that made the S.H.I.E.L.D archives.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: forest, flowers, theater, planet, strawberries, book, education, music, dirty, heaven, blood

Phil gingerly sat up; facing Clint he smiled when his lover rested his calloused hand against his cheek before popping a strawberry into his mouth. Heaven was the first thought that Phil had at the taste of the sweet, perfect berry. He wondered where Natasha had managed to find berries ripe enough to be called blood red. Clint was watching him with a look that screamed dirty thoughts, not that Phil minded; if Phil were in any shape to do anything about it he would have encouraged him. Trying to distract himself from the way Clint was staring at him, Phil plucked a flower out of the salad that Clint had been picking at and put it in his own mouth.

Clint scrunched-up his nose.

"You know you should try it before you turn you nose up at it," Phil said in that tone that Clint like to call his theater voice. 

"Nat should stop reading those weird cook books," Clint said. 

"Educating yourself is never a bad thing," Phil said. 

Clint hunted another of the flowers out of the forest of salad greens and looked at it dubiously before popping it into his mouth.

"I told you," Phil said at Clint's surprised expression. 

Clint stuck out his tongue at Phil as his mobile began to ring; Gustav Holst's "The Planets" could not be a good sign," Clint thought.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: friend, trace, pretty, lake, alpha, sun, sleepless, farm, photo, truck

Clint couldn't have been more relieved that the call had been a false alarm; Erik Selvig had only been making a friendly call to check on Phil. Clint couldn't blame Dr. Selvig; Phil had given them a lot of sleepless nights until he'd come out of his coma. 

It had taken months of rehab to get him this far in his recovery; Tony had made it his life's mission to rib Phil about Clint being the alpha in their relationship when Clint was exhausting himself trying to keep Phil from breaking his physical therapist's rules. Once Phil was clear-headed and alert, the rehab facility was pushing more and more of his buttons and there wasn't much left they could do for him that couldn't be done at home in the gym with the help of the Avengers; for everyone's sanity, Cap helped Clint load Phil into Clint's pick-up truck and drove up with the couple and Nat to their place in Westchester County.

Clint didn't even bother to check, he knew that Tony had put some sort of tracker on them; he thought protective Tony was sweet even though he was sure that Phil was going to be pissed-off if he figured out that Tony knew where they lived, but then Phil was more or less pissed-off most of the time these days. Clint hoped that being home would change that. Clint was close to positive anyway that Tony wasn't going to show-up at the rustic, farmhouse unless he was running for his life. Just in case, Clint made sure to text a bunch of pictures of the place; to the best of his knowledge, Tony liked things slick and modern.

After Cap and Nat had headed into town to pick-up some dinner and to give them some alone time, he and Phil had carefully made their way to the dock and watched the sun as it sunk behind the horizon. Pretty didn't begin to cover it. The reds and oranges over the lake were glorious; for the first time in what seemed like forever, Phil looked happy.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: over, desert, illusion, school, tramp, girl, young, moon, winter, hot,

Clint wondered if Phil ever thought about that first mission as asset and handler; he remembered that cold winter night like it was yesterday. It had been the first time that Clint had been in a desert. He had been surprised that it wasn't hot. When the clouds had finally parted and revealed the light of the full moon, Clint had taken aim. He'd lowered his bow when he'd seen his target's victim; the female he'd been briefed about was not even close to being a young woman. She hadn't even looked school-aged to Clint. She'd been a tiny girl and Clint had struggled with whether or not to take the shot; in the end he'd decided that it was still the best option and that seeing his arrow pierce her captor's eye wouldn't be anymore traumatizing than what she'd already been through. After taking the shot, Clint hadn't waited for Phil, who was supposed to be the girl's rescuer, instead Clint went tramping through the sand to get to the crying girl; he knew he'd done the right thing when the sobbing child had wrapped her arms around his neck when he'd lifted her off the ground.

Clint had had words with Phil after that mission, he'd thought his career with S.H.I.E.L.D. was over before it had begun. Instead, it had been the briefer with illusions that had found himself exiled to the furthest base possible. It was that day that Clint had learned he could trust Coulson.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: singing, hope, moving, horse, workshop, yellow, trouble, rain, wedding, bar, shadow, style, empty, accident

A sudden down pour forced Clint and Phil to move from their picnic spot on the beach back into their rented beach house. Once they had changed into dry clothes and the rain had slacked off to a sprinkle, Natasha had suggested a trip to Duval Street and the surrounding area for a little shopping and an early dinner. 

A gallery that looked more like a workshop than a high-end studio caught Clint's attention as they walked by. 

"Really, Clint?" Natasha asked, watching as he wandered around the up-cycled furniture; she was surprised that Phil didn't seem troubled by his boyfriend's taste. 

After Clint finally decided on a pair of bedside tables made from sawhorses, the group continued their stroll down Duval. There were a lot of choices and they finally agreed on a bar that served local fair. The aroma of the conch chowder that wafted from one of the server's trays that passed-by their high top table made their order an easy decision; the consensus had been that they hoped that it tasted as good as it smelled. Clint had thought that it had been a long time since he'd wanted to empty his bowl. 

Clint had noticed the flyer for Karaoke when they'd entered the bar, but he'd mostly ignored the music coming from the back room as had the others; but now a very familiar singing voice pulled him off of his bar stool and pulled him toward the backroom, curious the others followed.

Clint grinned and shook his head at the leggy woman in the yellow tank top that had to have slipped by them after they'd entered the bar. His ex-wife, Bobbi Morse, grinned back at him from the stage as she belted out "White Wedding".

Clint felt Phil's strong hands on his shoulders as his lover whispered into his ear, "What do you want to bet that Nick sent her to shadow us?"

"Sounds like his style," Clint said as he signaled to Nat to stand down. He knew Fury's choice of The Mockingbird hadn't been accidental.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: Promise, Midnight, Leave, Red, Invisible, Happiness, Angry, Sugar, Rose,Sanctuary

Natasha sat cross-legged on the sofa and watched Phil brew her rose tea. She didn't understand how he could look so happy when Clint was sitting outside on a porch swing with his ex-wife. Even though Clint and Phil seemed to trust her, Natasha was having her doubts; she wasn't pleased that The Mockingbird had been following them since at least Thursday night and nobody, not even Hawkeye, had apparently noticed; it was like she'd been invisible. She would have expected Phil or at least Clint to be angry considering the S.H.I.E.L.D rumor mill had Clint as the wronged party. 

"You shouldn't listen to the yentas, Natasha," Phil said, "yes, she was the one to leave the relationship, but she didn't break his heart."

"How did you--" Natasha asked. 

I've noticed how you've been observing Bobbi," Phil said, placing a mug of tea with a splash of cream and no sugar in front of her.

"I'll never be able to erase the red in my ledger next to your's and Clint's names," Natasha said, "but I'm not going to add to it."

By the time Clint came in alone around midnight, Natasha was on her third cup of tea and Phil had gone to bed over an hour before. When Clint sat down next to her she leaned into shoulder and took sanctuary there. 

"Fury may have sent her, but I promise you, Nat," Clint said, "that she wouldn't ever hurt us on purpose."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: Birthday, Number, Flying, Mind, Hate, Enemy, Entry, Tree, Painting, Devastation, Height, Police

Phil lay in bed and waited for Clint to come in and join him; he didn't sleep well on his own since his number had nearly come up. He also wanted to talk to him about their flight to LA tomorrow. He would have dreaded flying cross country if they'd had to fly commercial; he was grateful to Tony for lending them his private jet since he was pretty sure that Nick wouldn't have let them borrow a quinjet for personal business. He hated that he still felt so weak. He was nearly fed-up with his body; he felt like it was his enemy. After the trip from N.Y.C., he was tempted to beg off, but he wouldn't miss Pepper's birthday party for the world. Someone who had to police Tony in both their business and private lives deserved to have the best birthday possible. Something else he was going to have to talk to Clint about was what to get Pepper for her birthday; he just couldn't make-up his mind and wondered if Clint had any ideas. Just as he was about to doze off Clint finally entered through the bedroom door. 

"I thought you'd be asleep," Clint said, leaning an obviously paper-wrapped painting against the wall.

"You took care of Pepper's birthday present," Phil said, grinning.

"Nat and I saw it at a gallery that first night," Clint said, "when you decided to stay in. They delivered it when I was outside catching-up with Bobbi."

"Pepper is a huge art fan," Phil said. 

"I heard," Clint said. "I hope she likes it. It's an oil on canvas of a leafless birch tree. I forgot the artists name, she's not famous or anything, but I thought it was pretty. 

"You never know," Phil said, "she might become famous one day and Pepper will have one of her early works when she's at the height of her popularity."

"I thought it was kind of ironic," Clint said, "it's called _Devastation_."

Phil laughed.


End file.
